Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Six

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Ellie frowned a little at the question. "Yeah, I've talked to them. They're glad to know I'm okay. It's so strange how much older they are now, though." In the photos she'd seen, they both had a lot of gray hairs she didn't remember from before.

~~
Ethan looked amused. "The library's always open. You can stop by any time you want, as long as you don't get sugar on the books."

Armin nodded. He had to admit, it was a subject that caused him some anxiety as well. The thought of Starr leaving, of going with her and losing the people here, it was stressful. he'd come to think of Vestia as home.

"I mean, he'd probably lecture me about my work ethic while murdering me. I don't want that," James said. He shook his head, "I could beg Tori to take over if my talking is annoying you."

~~
Ellie nodded. "Yeah, there's a lot to figure out, isn't there?" She smiled a little, "You'll make it work. Maybe the dragons can live in more than one place or something."

She couldn't help thinking that it was so cute how Armin and Starr were touching. Hmm...

~~

Tala got up and took a shower, trying to wash the lingering scent of imaginary blood from her fur.

Afterward, she went looking for Rigel. Her mind was busy this morning, and she wanted to think about going into the Imperium and getting her mate back.

~~
Moriah might go looking for Ivor. She liked him, he was nice.

Esk shook his head. "Wouldn't.. .murder. .just look dis... dis... disapproving." Damn, why was that word hard? Eugh. "maybe throw things." He snorted. "Kay throws things when he's mad. He has shit aim"

---

Ivor was playing with some cards in one of the empty common areas, sitting on the floor with the deck on his lap and placing cards carefully in front of himself. Some form of solitaire maybe? Or he was just messing around.

---

Armin nodded to Ellie's suggestion. "There are many species who live with such arrangements and it seems to work. Have faith Miss Starr, you will find a solution that appeases everyone. Ultimately, that is what a leader does no?"

James snorted at that. "You know, he's never actually thrown something at me. Shoved things at me, yeah, but never thrown them." He shook his head, "Funny, huh?"

~~
Moriah looked in at Ivor, curious about what he was doing with those cards. She knew he didn't know many games, she wondered if solitaire was one of them.
"Hi Ivor," she said, keeping her voice gentle. She knew how easy it was to startle him. "What are you doing?"

Esk shrugged. "Didn't annoy him enough." He looked like he was concentrating a bit on getting the words out. "doesn't always throw AT you, just throws stuff."

---

Ivor cringed at the voice, he hadn't sensed anyone coming in. He looked around, eyes wide. Oh.. just Moriah.
He nodded to her, relaxing. "We had cards in the hospital... but the nurses never let us play with them unsupervised. I don't know why... " He examined a card carefully. "these ones look different, the symbols and pictures are strange."

"I'm kinda hurt. After that fight we had, I thought he had the highest level of annoyance for me," James said. "I mean, I said some stuff I probably shouldn't have."
Then again, he thought to himself, Kay probably outright hated him now. He wasn't looking forward to whenever they next had to talk.

~~
Moriah winced a little, she didn't enjoy scaring people. She went over to sit on the floor near him once he'd started to relax. "I guess you didn't have cards with kings or queens on them in the Imperium?" she asked. "You guys never had royalty, right?"

Esk stared at James, confused. "what?" He didn't understand what he was on about.
Huh, that was a novel feeling.

---

Ivor shook his head. "Generals, Admirals.... " He looked at the cards. "These are kings and queens?" They just looked like wierd freaky broken people to him. He had no frame of reference for things like crowns. He didn't really much understand royalty as it was. "They are strange looking."

"I uh... may have compared Kay to an android owner at one point," James said. "Maybe I went a little too far. But he was being really annoying, to be fair."

~~
"The Imperium sounds like a very warlike place," Moriah said. She nodded, looking at the cards, "Yes, that one's a king, and that one's a queen. Royals always wore fancy clothing in the old days."

Starr nodded and sighed "That may be what we end up doing, but to have our empire again means having a home world, and many miss being on their own world." She explained. It was kind of odd.
~~~
Rigel was with the Davil still, tooling around to try to make her run even better.

"You guys could always give up on having your own empire and join the Terran Empire," Ellie suggested. "The Terran Empire is great. The dragons would fit right in." Maybe she was biased though.

~~
Tala followed her nose to Rigel's location. It wasn't that Rigel smelled bad or something, Tala just had a good nose. "Greetings, Rigel, how fares the ship?" she asked.

Armin nodded to Starr's words and smiled at Ellie's, which thankfully she couldn't see because of his mask.
He found her love for her empire somewhat endearing, so many here seemed to have real issues with their homeworlds so it was refreshing.

"The universe is a large place, I am certain a compromise can be reached and a suitable location sought."

---

Esk stared at James, slowly churning that information around in his head. "oh..." He snorted in amusement. "didn't throw someone heavy? Maybe he's learning restraint."

---

Ivor turned the card upside down. "Has two heads too." He mused, the cards were a bit odd to him for sure.

James shook his head. "He didn't throw anything. He just got really angry. One of these days I should probably apologize to him, but he was being a dick to me..."
Neither he nor Kay had been at their best that day, that was for sure.

~~
Moriah laughed. "Yeah, that's a choice the artist made. Kings and queens didn't actually have two heads. People just make the art on the cards that way for some reason." She smiled at Ivor, "I take it cards in the Imperium don't look like that?"

"He's ALWAYS a dick." Esk shrugged. Except to Asher, presumably. that or Asher enjoyed being treated that way. Ew.

---

Ivor shook his head. "They have pictures, portraits or scenes... " He explained. It was sort of hard to explain though. He pointed to a 5 of hearts "What are these?" He asked, the symbol wasn't one he knew.

"I was looking into that before the time jump" Starr said then shrugged a little which made her realize she was still holding his hand. Oops? Oh well, it was comforting to know he was there for her. "I will have to start that over again soon."
~~~
"Good morning Tala. She's repaired, I'm just tweaking some parts." Rigel said, sitting up away from the panel he had been working in to look up at her.

Armin nodded, squeezing her shoulder gently. He liked the contact, Vavare were naturally tactile and having to restrain that instinct around humanoids was difficult anyway.

"Perhaps Unity will have some helpful information. maps perhaps?"

"I mean there were times he was nice to me," James said, "Just not super recently." He shook his head, "But yeah, in general he seems to be a dick."
Like Esk, he wondered what Kay was like around Asher. This wasn't like Matt and Thalia, it couldn't be, could it?

~~
"Those symbols are called hearts," Moriah said. "I don't know why they call them hearts, since they don't look like the heart of any species I know of. Terrans are very mysterious."
She looked curious, "The cards you grew up with sound pretty."

~~
"I would loooove if you guys were part of the Terran Empire," Ellie said. "We should totally look up information on Unity, or wherever there's information about this."
She watched Armin and Starr, they were acting more affectionate than usual, definitely. "Guys, can I ask you something?"

~~
"Excellent," Tala declared. "I had lost track of your repair work while I was away on my unsatisfactory vacation into Esk's head!" Her ears twitched with humor.
"Our next stop is Unity station, but I wished to speak of what comes after that," she said. "I desire to find my mate and my people, and to slaughter any satare who attempt to stop us from finding them."

Esk snorted, glad someone at least agreed with him.

---

Ivor smiled softly. "they were. I liked looking at them. These are interesting too.." Hearts huh? weird.

---

Armin looked to Ellie, tilting his head.

Moriah nodded. "It's funny how different cultures have similar ideas sometimes," she said. "I'd love to see what cards look like where you're from, maybe they have pictures online or something."

Ivor nodded but he looked a little uncertain "I... don't know.." He admitted.

"Well it's worth finding out," Moriah decided. Hey, she wanted to know!
She got out her tablet--she'd totally acquired one from Vestia's supplies at some point--and started searching to see if anyone had posted pictures of Imperium playing cards online.

Ivor put the cards neatly back together and awkwardly stood up, holding the cards carefully in his good hand.
He was curious too and couldn't help but creep a little closer, but not too close, just in case he wasn't supposed to be looking.

Moriah looked up at Ivor when he moved closer, smiling reassuringly at him. She tilted the tablet screen so he could see it better. "You can sit down next to me if you want," she offered.

"Ask away" Starr replied, adding the thought of looking up info at Unity.

~~~
Rigel nodded then smiled softly "I think that's the plan, to go around and check on what families we can. If not, we can go and check with the Devil." A short mission like this wouldn't be all that amiss, would it?

"Are you guys, like, dating?" Ellie asked, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. "Cause my sixth sense is telling me that you are."

~~
Tala nodded. "I would rather that we send the might of Vestia in somehow, because she could rescue more folk from my homeworld."
She frowned, "Do you think there is any way we could hide her from the Imperium though? I would love to slaughter satare scum, but not if it would endanger the children we transport."

Ivor nodded. "a.. alright.." He obediently sat down beside her, reading her offer as an instruction.

---

Armin bowed his head, once more very grateful for the mask. He let go of Starr's shoulder. She could front this talk, she WAS the female after all, it was her perogotive.

Moriah ducked her head for a few moments as Ivor sat down, she was a little unsettled by his obedient attitude. She wanted to tell him that she hadn't been giving him an order, but she had a feeling trying to explain that was just going to confuse him.
Oh well.
She looked up at him again, smiling at him, then turned her attention to the tablet to see if she could find any pictures of Imperium playing cards.

Imperium information was pretty spotty outside Imperium space but there were a few dealers in 'exotic' goods and similar. Apparently these decks were very rare to see outside Imperium space, but given how insular the Satare were, was that really such a surprise?

the one they did find had, as Ivor had described, military ranks instead of royals, 4 of them instead of 3 and 4 suits, swords, torches, axes and what looked like a bell?

They were quite pretty with full body images for the court cards but they had a common efficient iconographic design to them that made them recognisably playing cards. Funny how much similarity there was really.